Voltage regulators, such as DC-to-DC voltage converters, are used to provide stable voltage sources for various electronic systems. Efficient DC-to-DC converters are particularly needed for battery management in low power devices (e.g., laptop notebooks, cellular phones, etc.). A switching voltage regulator generates an output voltage by converting an input DC voltage into a high frequency voltage, and then filtering the high frequency input voltage to generate the output DC voltage. Specifically, the switching regulator includes a switch for alternately coupling and decoupling an input DC voltage source (e.g., a battery) to a load (e.g., an integrated circuit (IC)). An output filter, typically including an inductor and a capacitor, may be coupled between the input voltage source and the load to filter the output of the switch, and thus provide the output DC voltage. A controller (e.g., a pulse width modulator, a pulse frequency modulator, etc.) can control the switch to maintain a substantially constant output DC voltage.
Monolithic switching regulators integrate controllers, drivers, and power devices into a same IC. Such monolithic regulators may have reduced resistance and inductance between components due to substantial elimination of wire connections between controller, driver, and power device components. This low resistance and inductance between the functional components allows monolithic switching regulators to carry a higher current density, and to operate at higher switching frequencies, as compared to discrete solutions.